


Ascension

by hellskitchensmurdock



Category: Torchwood
Genre: AU, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D - Freeform, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Spoilers, Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, Hurt, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23236561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellskitchensmurdock/pseuds/hellskitchensmurdock
Summary: Someone is going to die, they all know it.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Ascension

**Author's Note:**

  * For [princessoftheworlds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessoftheworlds/gifts).



> Hello!! This fic is based off a scene from Agents of Shield, so if you are worried about spoilers, particularly from the season 3 finale, please don't read this !!
> 
> For those who are, it is based off [this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R73UOVN6R08)
> 
> And thank you to Nik for editing this !!

Jack bangs on the cell door, despite knowing it won’t help. Yelling out in frustration, he pulls his hair and begins to pace the cell again. It isn’t big; he can only take three steps before having to turn around.

“Guys.” He taps his comms on to hear them yelling. “Talk to me.”

“The ship they arrived in,” Gwen explains. “It’s got a bomb on it.”

Tosh cuts in, “I can’t diffuse it, and I estimate that up to half the planet will be destroyed if it explodes. The only thing we can do is get it out of Earth’s atmosphere.”

“Let me do it. I just got to get out of this  _ bloody cell! _ ” Jack spins around in a circle, trying to find a way out.

“It’s no use, Jack. There’s less than ten minutes until it explodes. Even if you got out right now you won’t make it in time.” He can imagine Owen rubbing his hands over his face as he hears a groan. Someone is going to die, they all know it.

Not on Jack’s watch.

“Tosh, keep trying to diffuse the bomb. No one is going up,” Jack orders.

“There’s too much risk! I could go up and do it there-” 

“No,” he immediately says. “No one is going up. No one is dying. Everyone got that?”

No one replies. Instead, Tosh begins to protest, and Jack tunes out the yelling that follows, knowing that Owen, Gwen and Ianto will stop her. Right now, Jack needs to focus on getting out of the cell. He doesn’t turn off his comms in case something important is said.

As he runs his hands across the wall in search for a way out, he can only hear Tosh and Owen arguing. He’s not listening to what they are saying.

“Guys?” Gwen's voice cuts in. It’s sharp. It’s filled with concern, worry, fear. He can’t help but listen.

“ _ Guys _ ?” she asks again but is still ignored by Owen and Tosh.

“Gwen?” Jack stiffens, his hand hovering over his comms as if it will help him hear better. “What’s going on?”

She ignores him as she yells, “Guys, shut up! Where is Ianto?”

Owen and Tosh fall silent as Jack’s heart drops. 

“Ianto?!” he yells. “Ianto,  _ answer me! _ Where are you?”

He feels tears form in his eyes and his heart pounding incessantly in his chest. He can barely breathe.

“Ianto, please!” He throws himself at the cell door uselessly, banging his fist.

As if on cue, he hears a plane take off through the comms. 

No. Not a plane.

A ship.

An alien ship.

“Ianto…” he whispers, leaning against the door. “Please tell me you aren’t on there. Please tell me you’re off getting coffee for us all for when this is all done. Please tell me I’m going to see you again.”

“Sorry,” Ianto whispers back, the engine of the plane becoming louder as it comes through Ianto’s comms.

That one word,  _ sorry _ , is all he needs to know that Ianto is on that alien ship, sacrificing himself for the human race.

“Ianto… get back here, please!” he begs.

“Too late.” There’s a grunt. Ianto’s struggling with something. Jack doesn’t know what. He can’t see him.

He’ll never see Ianto again.

“You can’t just die like this, It’s... It’s wrong.”

“I don’t know,” Ianto says. He chuckles, sounding as if he is smiling slightly. “Saving the man I love and the world at the same time? Feels pretty right to me.”

“Ianto… I’d survive.”

“Yeah, but I’m saving you from the pain. Once it happens, it’s all over for me, but for you… You’ll feel it, won’t you? Besides, this isn’t your call. You aren’t here. Don’t blame yourself; you can’t change any of this.” Ianto begins to cut in and out, but Jack can still hear the fear behind the mask he’s been wearing every day of his life. But he can also hear sincerity so raw Jack thinks he can bring himself to believe him one day. 

“Ianto, you’re breaking up.”

“Yeah… must be the distance.” Melancholy creeps into Ianto’s voice. Jack almost finds the cracks in his mask comforting. 

“Ianto… I can’t take it if you…” Jack‘s breathing becomes shaky as he holds back sobs. “You can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t just say goodbye…there are so many things I need to say.”

“Me too. Come to think of it… we haven’t said it.” He chuckles again, and Jack knows that it is to hide his fear, to repair his mask one last time.

“Said what?”

“I love…”

There was nothing.

“Ianto? _ Ianto? _ ” Jack yells. His voice has a hysterical edge as his desperation grows. “Tosh, turn it around. Turn it around!”

There was nothing.

“I can’t… Jack.”

He knows. It wasn’t just Ianto not speaking: there was no breathing, no plane, no static. 

Only silence.

“Tosh, please! Help me!” Jack is still yelling. At the back of mind, he thinks he’ll never stop now that he’s started.

“I can’t,” Tosh repeats, her voice shaking this time. “Besides, he wouldn’t want us to.”

Jack sinks to his knees, knowing in his heavy heart that it is true. He turns off his comms and sobs quietly. The man he loves is gone; about to sacrifice himself for a planet full of people that only someone as compassionate as Ianto could believe were worth saving.

-

“Jack? Jack!” Ianto calls out. 

When he realises the comms have cut out, he lets out a sob. But only one. The tears continue to stream down his face, and his heart beats fast in his chest, but he takes a deep breath and squeezes his lips together to seal in the sobs fighting their way up to his throat.

He looks out the window in front of him as he breathes in and out.

In and out.

In.

and out.

He looks back at the bomb.  _ 10 seconds _ .

_ 9\. 8. 7. _

He sighs. 

_ 6. _

“Well,” he says, to no one in particular.

_ 5\. 4. _

“I got to see the world.”

_ 3. _

_ 2. _

_ 1. _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
